Moving a dog to Europe (non UK)

Hello all,

I would like to know if anybody can point me towards the cheapest airline for transporting a medium size dog (21kg) to Europe?

I want to do all the paperwork, med checks etc. myself and am just after the pure transport.

I do not want to use a company such as dogtainers, jetpets, petcarriers etc. as they only provide full service and are very, very expensive (quote: 3290 one way which is ridiculous as that is more than three times the price of a ticket for a human).

Ideally, I am after an airline which charges reasonable excess baggage fees and counts the dog and its crate as such (or even accept him as part of the free checked baggage allowance.)

So, if anybody knows about this or has experience with doing this directly with airlines (without involving the full service companies), I would appreciate any info.

Since this is Ozbargain: the reason for doing this is to save significant amounts of money which is better in my pocket than in the pocket of the specialist carriers. I found a report from somebody who move a dog from Oz to NYC - the company wanted to charge him $1300 but when he researched a bit, he did it himself at a cost of under $500 (including the flight as the dog was counted as excess baggage). This shows the significant savings to be had here (or the hefty profits made by the companies - whichever way you look at it)

So any help and information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Comments

  • is there any chance you would be willing to adopt me as your dog?

  • Have you had a look at Qantas and Air New Zealand's International Pet websites?

    http://www.qantas.com.au/qfreight/qfe/Q-GO_Pets/au/en

    http://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/international-cargo-pet-serviā€¦

    Air NZ only does pets from NZ, but it might be cheaper? I wouldn't know.

  • Thanks.
    Quantas only flies to London and they promised to send me a price quote.
    Going to NZ first will be more expensive. I have contacted Singapore Air (as they let you use your free baggage allowance as far as I am aware) but so far have not received an answer yet.

  • What?! Can't you take your "seeing eye dog" on board with you?? Wink wink.

    • I thought about that, too. As a companion dog for stress and anxiety. But where I can I easily get a certificate for that - that is the question.
      He would behave well, much better than most adults and children. He just lies down and snoozes in those situations.

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